


On the Trail

by remanth



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Many Happy Returns, Reichenbach Fall, Sherlock - Freeform, anderson feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anderson becomes obsessed with proving Sherlock is still alive and gathers the evidence to show it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Trail

**Author's Note:**

> I know in the show that Anderson doesn't have a listed first name but I wanted to give him one. He seems like a Daffyd to me so that's what I went with. Inspiration for this fic came from the minisode Many Happy Returns, which I highly recommend you watch if you haven't yet. I think Anderson is going to get a lot more love this season.

It hadn’t taken long after events had fallen out as they had (and Anderson had to wince at the unintended pun) for him to realize maybe perhaps things weren’t as clear as he had believed. Sally still declaimed loudly that Sherlock was guilty, his suicide only proved that. But Anderson didn’t believe that anymore. Sherlock was a show-off, he’d overheard the bloody arse saying just that to John Watson. And Anderson could see it. Every deduction was put on display, every movement, every breath, every blink. When Sherlock was on a crime scene, he acted as if he was on a stage and everyone was there hanging on his every word. Which, honestly, did happen quite often.

It wasn’t as if Anderson himself was stupid or all that incompetent. It was just that _everyone_ when viewed through Sherlock’s eyes was stupid and incompetent. The years of training and of actually working and going through more training as new methods came out had to count for _something_ , didn’t they? Anderson hadn’t worked his whole life towards this, dreamed of making a difference, to be treated like a complete idiot. Yes, he was wrong sometimes when he was studying a crime scene. But that was how these things worked. You gathered evidence, studied a scene, and made theories about what happened. And, as you gathered and processed the evidence, if things didn’t work out, you scrapped your theories and went with new ones. That’s how everyone worked, that’s how Anderson worked, that’s how he was trained, and that’s how they’d solved cases for years.

But, of course, bloody brilliant Sherlock Holmes comes along and sets that all on its head. The mad bastard could take one look at a body or a scene and tell you everything down to what the victim had had for breakfast. The first few times, it was absolutely amazing and Anderson had said so. But Sherlock had brushed him off, a manic sparkle in his eyes and hurried away as quickly as he’d come. After that, Sherlock had come to the scene a few times in the middle of Anderson’s thoughts about what had happened. While he’d been wrong, Anderson had been big enough to admit it. At least the first couple times. After that, after one too many insults, Anderson had started to hate Sherlock. Hated hearing his voice, seeing him at crime scenes, hated the dread he felt whenever he wondered what new thing Sherlock would say now. That didn’t stop Anderson from doing his job but it made it harder.

Then Sherlock had gone to rehab and Anderson had wondered if the brusque and insulting manner had been a result of the drugs. Drugs could do weird things to people, withdrawals even weirder. But Sherlock had come back just as nasty as before and Anderson just shook his head and got on with the job. He became short with Sherlock, snapping at him and telling him things Anderson knew would piss the broody man off. He didn’t quite stoop to calling Sherlock a freak like Sally did, a small part of him still marvelling at the sheer genius residing in Sherlock’s brain. And no matter how much he tried to quash it, there was another small part of Anderson that was riddled with jealousy at the facility Sherlock had with deducing people.

So the years passed and Anderson grew exhausted with it all. It never crossed his mind to quit, though, or to transfer. Lestrade got the high-profile cases, the most interesting cases, or the most important. And, with Sherlock helping behind the scenes, everyone’s star in the department was rising. When John Watson appeared, Sherlock mellowed a little bit and Anderson hoped idly that things would grow a little easier on crime scenes. Which they did, just a little bit. Everyone could see how good of an influence John was on Sherlock and Sally had started a pool in the office as to when they would start sleeping together. Anderson hadn’t participated, finding it a little crass to bet on something like that. After all, with how they acted around each other, his personal opinion was that Sherlock and John were already together.

Then came the name that Anderson still cursed, even now, weeks after the conclusion to it all: Moriarty. Or Richard Brook, depending on who you believed. Everyone talking about the genius detective’s suicide after it happened had their own opinion, often screaming at each other over disagreements. Anderson had taken to avoiding his usual pub, tired of all the questions and poking and prodding. He hadn’t made it a secret he’d worked with Sherlock. Well, sort of. Quite often lately, Lestrade had worked with Sherlock and Anderson had been on the sidelines. Before this last case, Anderson had spent quite a few pints here complaining about the man. Even now, Lestrade was going carefully through each and every case Sherlock had worked on with the man’s shadowy older brother. Anderson had taken one look at Mycroft Holmes and known that here was a man that you shouldn’t cross. It would be the last thing you’d do. He’d helped with the cases he’d been the primary tech on, explaining each and every detail to Mycroft while the elder Holmes studied him and the case file raptly. It was like being deduced by Sherlock only with a finer edge, a more honed blade. As they worked through the cases, Mycroft proved each time that Sherlock had not been involved, could not have been involved. That was the first time the cracks appeared in Anderson’s certainty that Sherlock had had a hand in the craziness of that last case.

It wasn’t until someone came forward, some unknown woman who gave Mycroft the information, the _real_ information, about Moriarty, that Anderson realized he’d made a grave mistake. He never knew who had found the information or what she gained in return, but Anderson was glad that the last niggling doubts had been put to rest. After all, a show-off like Sherlock wouldn’t commit suicide if he was innocent, right? He would have been at the forefront of every initiative to prove his innocence, be the most strident voice in clearing his own name. Or even disappeared for a bit to gather the evidence needed, to let the furor die down before he came back in a blaze of glory to clear his own name. But that’s not what was going to happen, was it? Lestrade and Mycroft were working tirelessly to clear Sherlock’s name, especially as Lestrade was riding a desk now. The brass had made it perfectly clear that Lestrade was hanging by a thin wire, the desk the only thing keeping him from losing his job. John helped when and where he could but the poor man spent most of his time in his new flat or at the clinic. Anderson felt sorry for him; everyone could see just how much John had lost whenever they looked at his face.

Slowly, ever so slowly, about a year after Sherlock’s suicide, the genius’ name was cleared. Mycroft had packed away the case files for the last time, nodding stately at Lestrade before leaving the office. Anderson had thought he’d feel a sense of completion, of finality, after it but just felt empty. There was unimaginable guilt curling in his gut over his own role in Sherlock’s downfall and he’d cut all ties with Sally Donovan. While they had both been doing their jobs, trying to take a criminal off the streets, Anderson realized that his relationship with her was rather toxic to his state of mind. Life went on, the world turned, and nothing seemed at all different. John was still as faded as ever, Lestrade kept riding the desk though gave advice to other inspectors when they asked, and Anderson himself continued his own work. Sherlock’s innocence had been a one-day wonder in the news and then faded away as if it had never happened. But still, Anderson wondered. Why had the man committed suicide when he’d _known_ he was innocent? What could that act have possibly gained him?

That question was foremost in his mind one morning when Anderson came into work, about two months after Sherlock’s innocence was proved beyond all doubt. There was a news article on his desk, an article about a couple of known assassins who’d been found dead in a dingy flat in Germany. They’d both been shot cleanly, two to the chest and one to the head. The whole thing screamed training and the police in Germany had no leads to follow. Anderson wondered briefly if Sherlock could really be alive and dealing with assassins before dismissing it with a self-deprecating laugh. The man was dead, the ME had ID’d the body. Even though it seemed like something Sherlock could do, the bodies had been in a locked room with no windows after all, there was no way it was him. But even so, Anderson kept a lookout for cases like the ones Sherlock had taken for Lestrade.

Over the next couple months, the evidence that _someone_ out there was emulating Sherlock built. A jewelry thief captured in New York City, a nobleman’s kidnapped daughter found in Bern, a twenty year old cold case finally solved in Dubai. Each and every case had the hallmark’s of one of Sherlock’s: the sheer speed at solving it, the complete lack of any leads for the resident police force, and the lack of anyone coming forward to take credit for the answers. Anderson had worked with the police long enough to recognize when someone was spinning for all they were worth, taking credit without openly saying they were taking credit for solved cases. But the cherry on top of all this evidence cake was one single photograph in an American newspaper. Anderson didn’t even see the title of it, all his attention was riveted on the corner of the picture on the front page. It was another kidnapping case, the son of a senator had been taken. The picture was of the son’s return, the boy held securely in his crying father’s arms as the FBI escorted the family to a waiting car. In the upper corner of the photograph, nearly hidden behind a burly FBI agent, was a familiar face. His hair was different, of course, straight and short where before it had been curly and somewhat shaggy. His face was a little narrower, the bones far more evident in the black and white photo. But his eyes were the same, that hawk-like stare that took in everything around him. That was Sherlock, hidden behind an FBI agent and caught in a split second by the flash of a camera. That was Sherlock, amazingly alive and still doing what he loved doing. What he couldn’t live without doing.

Everyone Anderson showed the picture to just shook their heads, gave him pitying looks and moved on. Everyone knew Sherlock was dead, the genius detective had fallen from the roof of St. Barts. But Anderson wouldn’t let it go. Proving that Sherlock was still alive became an obsession. He couldn’t sleep at night more than a few hours, looking through news articles online, paging through pictures of tourists and others, trying to find more evidence that Sherlock was alive. Spectacular cases were clipped out of the newspaper and tucked into a file that Anderson carried around with him at all times. He’d even tried approaching John a few times, trying to get the other man to open up a bit about Sherlock and places the detective might have wanted to visit or had visited. But after the third time, when John had threatened to shoot him shouting all the insults Sally had heaped on Sherlock, Anderson gave it up and went back to his newspapers and online articles. His work started to suffer and he skipped days, the obsession consuming him. The guilt was like a monster deep inside, eating at him. Anderson could only hope that proving Sherlock alive would alleviate some of that guilt. Not all of it, no, never all of it. He deserved that guilt even if Sherlock _was_ alive. Hadn’t he been one of the reasons Sherlock had been chased out of the city, had lost his home, had forsaken one of his only friends?

Finally, New Scotland Yard let him go. Anderson’s work had turned to complete crap, only giving the evidence part of his attention. Too many mistakes, too many missed days, and Anderson was out on his ass with a pitying look and a box carrying his personal effects. That was the last straw for his wife, him losing his job to the ghost of a man he didn’t even like. She packed her bags that very day and headed out to a friend’s. Yet when Anderson thought about stopping, about letting his own personal investigation go, the guilt roared in his belly. He had some savings, enough to keep him going since it was just him now. Devoting all his time to his investigation, Anderson trailed the man he was firmly convinced was Sherlock across America and through the Middle East to Europe. The trail zigzagged, much like he was looking for something. Another article popped up around the two year mark of Sherlock’s fall, another assassin killed in a locked room. That was in Austria. Anderson’s file grew and a red line snaked across a map, following the trail the man was leaving behind. It was with that death that everything seemed to reach a turning point. The trail stopped moving around and started a deliberate march west. Towards London. There were stops in Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Germany until the trail finally stopped in France.

“But I really think he’s alive!” Anderson exclaimed, shaking the newest clipping at Lestrade. The DI had agreed to meet him in this pub though the expression on Lestrade’s face told Anderson he was regretting it. “Look! Look at all these cases. There’s just the sort of thing that would have drawn him.”

“Daffyd, really, Sherlock’s dead,” Lestrade said tiredly, dropping the clipping back onto the open file on the table. “He’s been dead a while now and he’s not coming back.”

“Or maybe that’s what he wanted us to believe,” Anderson insisted, pulling on the sleeve of the cream jumper he was wearing. When he’d seen it in the store, on a rare shopping trip for more warm clothes, Anderson had felt drawn to it. It looked warm and comfortable and oddly familiar. In the end, the jumper had been an impulse buy though it had become his favorite. He flipped through the stack of papers quickly, looking for the photo that had sent him off on his mad, desperate, obsessive chase. “Look, I showed you the photo about a year ago. Look at it, Greg. It’s him. I know it is.”

“I really think you need to let this go,” Lestrade replied, not taking the paper. He’d seen it before and, while he would admit there was a resemblance, Lestrade believed Sherlock dead. When Anderson just shook his head and carefully tucked the photo away, Lestrade let his head fall forward and rest on the table. “This is why you lost your job, Daffyd. You’re obsessed and you can’t focus on anything else. Sherlock is dead and searching for him won’t bring him back.”

“You can tell me that all you like,” Anderson replied, a curious calm coming over him as he looked at the map with it’s red line. France wasn’t really that far away, after all, and the line had been making a steady march here. “But he’s coming back. He’s stopped in France, I don’t know why. But he’s coming back. There’s nowhere else for him to be.”

Lestrade just sighed and slid off the stool, shaking his head at Anderson before leaving. After all this time, the brass had finally started trusting him with cases again. Much as he might want to believe Sherlock was alive, Lestrade couldn’t jeopardize his career with useless speculation. He didn’t see the calm and focused look on Anderson’s face as the man folded the map carefully and tucked it into his file. There were more papers to search today, more people speak with since he’d gotten involved with some people who called themselves Watson’s Warriors. Sherlock was indeed coming back and Anderson would be ready for when he did. He had the proof right there in his hand. Maybe by then, when Sherlock revealed himself in the blaze of glory Anderson had imagined he’d do so long ago, the beast of guilt in his gut might finally be quieted.


End file.
